


A Canberran Ozzie in an Alien Adventure

by AshMontgomery, Plucium



Category: Original Work
Genre: 'Realistic', Comedy, Humor, Outer Space, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-02 23:36:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16314833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshMontgomery/pseuds/AshMontgomery, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plucium/pseuds/Plucium
Summary: Space can be a scary place. Pirates, Slavers, Supernovas, and endless drama. Follow the adventures of an ambiguously aged, gym-going engineer as he tries his best to survive whatever the universe can throw at him. There will be action, adventure, comedy, and no absolutely inconvenient betrayals in:A Canberran Ozzie in an Alien Adventure!Enjoy!





	1. A Canberran Ozzie in an Alien Spaceship

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little thing I'm cross-posting from r/HFY. Enjoy!  
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 1:

To be honest I don’t know what I was expecting. Probably nothing, considering all I had done was take a shit. It wasn’t even midnight, or 3AM if those YouTube videos were to be believed. And yet, there I was, walking out of the bathroom after taking a dump at eight in the morning, all dressed up and ready for work when,

 

“Fuck me. Is that a fucking portal?”

 

Of course, reality wasn’t nearly as kind, and I only managed a startled “Fuck me”, before I was knocked out by a startled yeti in winter camouflage.

 

\---

 

 

When I came to, I was significantly less composed than I would like to admit. I would like to be able to say that upon waking, I calmly sat up, looked around and assessed my situation. What actually happened was me waking up, calmly sitting up, and freaking out when I couldn’t move. As I desperately strained against leather restraints I caught sight of a white coated form some distance away.

 

This stopped me. Now I’m not the sort of guy who believes in conspiracy theories, and this was no exception. I calmed down immediately as I justified to myself that that portal and the yeti was just a fever dream, and I was now in medical care. What didn’t register to me, however, was the fact the doctor seemed to be at least eight foot tall, and severely anorexic.

 

Now somewhat calmer I started to turn my head from side to side, not fully, just enough to get my bearings. The room I was in was big, probably some four meters high and seven wide and long. Filling it was a series of high tech machines looking nothing like the clunky heart monitors you see in the movies. I shrugged this off as just Hollywood logic. Awkwardly tucking my chin into my right armpit, I saw that I seemed to be lying on some form of metal sponge, not dissimilar to a silvery memory foam. Looking around a bit more I saw a strange crest branded on almost everything.

 

‘Strange’ I thought to myself, ‘Would have thought I would have noticed that sooner.’ The crest was pretty simple as medical symbols go, what looked to be the outline of a disfigured ant head with horns. I shrugged this off as some obscure Greek myth I had no knowledge of.

 

Sighing, I let my head thud back down onto the table thing I was tied to. Closing my eyes, I let my head loll to the left, before the feeling of hot breath on my face startled my eyes open again.

 

This time at least I didn’t pass out, I merely jumped away from the strange, Alien visage staring back at me. Or rather I tried, all I managed to do was yank my head painfully into the rails surrounding my ‘bed’ that my limbs were attached to.

 

I let out a strangled moan as I furtively tried to rub the now sore spot on my head against the raised section of the foam that functioned as a pillow, the Cricket thing momentarily forgotten. A strange clicking sound brought me out of my reprieve, the Cricket-Ant-Thing’s head had come closer, leaning towards me, an almost angry look on its face. A split second after the chittering started a cool voice interjected into my thoughts, a cold, clinical edge to it.

 

“Hello specimen 1. How are you feeling?”

 

I frantically whipped my head around, looking for the speaker, before my eyes settled again on the Angry Cricket. Too shocked to respond, I frantically tried to gesture, but only managed to tilt my wrists, pointing first to her mouth, them my head over and over again, with an increasing tempo. The Cricket-Thing watched with the same angry disposition on its face, although its mandibles did expand a bit, thankfully not revealing anything, before chittering a bit more. Just as before, the smooth voice spoke from within my head a split second after the chittering started.

 

“How can you understand me? Don’t worry, it’s not a neural implant, those things are nigh impossible to get right the first time, not to mention the cost. It’s just a simple earplug, a small mesh placed over your eardrum that is vibrated by small electromagnets placed around your ear canal. Perfectly harmless, and removable.” I was still a bit confused, understandably of course, but somewhere in my stunned mind I was able to translate what she said. Basically; alien headphones.

 

“You can understand me right, [UNTRANSLATABLE NAME- NEW DESIGNATION: MARK] hasn’t cocked up the installation, has he?” I stared at her for a bit longer, the error had startled me, what little rhythm I had gotten into had been rudely disrupted by the harsh robotic sound. Luckily (or unluckily, looking back) my higher intelligence finally kicked into gear and responded the only way I could.

 

“…Don’t worry, I hear you.” Yes, even confused, scared, and recently knocked out, I still had room for puns. Get used to it.

 

“Oh! A pun! That’s rare, really rare actually, usually most sapiens don’t have the capability for the creative thinking involved. A shame it won’t matter.” Somewhat conversely, a sad tone slipped into ‘her’ voice, while her face twisted into a sneer, previously unseen plates shifting and overlapping, like armour.

 

“Oh don’t worry, “A slightly drunk, yet posh tone crept into my voice, not unlike a drunk Robert Downey Jr, “I can give you an earful.” An off-kilter smirk found it’s way onto my face, before realising what was looking at it, faltered and promptly disappeared in a hurry.

 

“Oh, that is good!” The ’woman’s’ voice lifted, sounding happier before the profession edge took over. “Enough distractions, do you know where you are?”

 

“In the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy, orbiting a small yellow sun?” The smirk was back.

 

“Not quite.”

 

“A long time ago in a galaxy far far away?”

 

“Close.”

 

“Welp, I’m out. Why would you even bother asking in the first place?” At this point, all my confusion, anger and fear had disappeared in the face of the familiar: exasperated yelling. Very cathartic, let me tell you. "Does it look like I have any clue where I am?"

 

“At least you’re aware of space. Makes explaining this that much easier.” She scowled, or at least I presumed she did, alien facial expressions and all. By this point, I was pretty sure it was a girl, in the lack of any familiar sexual characteristics, I was just going off her ‘voice’. As for the expression, call it a hunch.

 

“You're onboard the Intrepid a research vessel for the Wantle mercenary corporation.” Finally, she leaned back. I hadn’t realised it, but she was tall, almost as tall as the doctor in the corner. Wait. What happened to him? I glanced back, the beanpole was still facing towards his workbench, fiddling with glass vials, looking as if he was accomplishing exactly nothing. Facing back towards the woman, I observed her. Glancing up and down, she was dressed pretty much identically to how a doctor back on earth would be dressed, with only subtle changes hinting as to its alien nature. That and the fact that it hung off her like a coat hanger. About as wide as one too. Spoopy skeletons ain't got shit on these aliens.

 

“-your responsibilities as a slave include, but are not limited to: Cleanliness of self, Cleanliness of living quarters, performing work at the request of your employers, meeting the requirements of you’re assignments-“ She would have kept going were it not for me cutting her off.

 

“Sorry, so sorry, b-but could you go back a bit, what’s this about slavery? ‘Cos that’s got me confused.” In my nervousness, I stuttered. Never really happened to me before, says wonders about my self-control that I wasn’t a gibbering wreck, if I do say so myself.

 

“Were you even listening?” This time it was her turn to be exasperated. “I literally explained all of this!” Encouraged by my twirling fingers, she let out what must be the bug equivalent to a sigh, but really just sounded like a fart to me. “You remember being knocked out yes?”

 

“Yes,” I responded, adding a sagely nod (which is more difficult than you think to do when lying down).

 

She let out that fart sound again, before continuing “To summarise; experimental FTL went wrong, ripped a hole to your universe, we pulled you out, as no witnesses. Wantle wanted to have you killed but after a quick scan it was determined that you could provide at least decent manual labour, so you’ve been contracted as a slave for unpaid work. There. Simple enough for you?”

 

“Quite. Soo, Slave. Do tell. How does that work? If it’s what I think it is, how is that even legal?” I let my head lay limp against the pillow. I wasn’t a hero. Sure, I would try to escape if the opportunity arose, but for now, my natural survival instinct to play along with the bad guy was in full swing, and I just wanted to live. While surely not as dramatic as busting out of the spaceship in a massive fireball, before jetting to the nearest space station with nothing more than a hot water heater and some gaffer tape, playing along certainly had a chance of survival orders of magnitude higher. That is if the whole ‘Slave’ thing wasn’t just a glitch in the translator, and it actually meant unpaid intern or something.

 

“What, explain what a slave is? You do work, you don’t get paid. We give you the basic stuff required to live. As for the legalities, what part of mercenary company don’t you understand? The whole business isn’t exactly legal.” I couldn’t quite be sure, but that was probably her version of an irritated glare. Wonderful.

 

“I don’t suppose you have any food? I’m so hungry I could eat a cricket.” While certainly not the usual saying, or that she would get it, I was feeling a bit down at the moment, so snarky comments it was.

 

“Omnivore I presume?” Sure enough, she hadn’t gotten it.

 

“Yes, now bug-ger off, I’ve got an existential crisis to deal with.” My head lolled to face her and I subtly pulled the finger with my less visible hand.

 

“Clearly one not so great to impact your mental facilities. I shall return shortly.” With that she spun and headed towards what I was now seeing was a door and not just another part of the wall. Why she was getting the meal herself and not having it brought up raised many questions, but I dismissed it as her having some tact and giving me some time to herself.

 

“Please don’t!” I shouted over to her. Her head whipped around, and she almost looked startled, but she recovered quickly and briskly walked through the door to god-knows-where.

 

Great. Now I’ve got to figure out what to do to pass the time.


	2. A Canberran Ozzie in an Alien Medical Station

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As I've already written this up to a point, I'll post a bunch, then the waiting will commence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy!

After lying on the ‘bed’ for a while, the stress of the situation finally caught up to me, and a wave of exhaustion washed over my body. Relaxing muscles I hadn’t even realised I had tensed, I became aware of an uncomfortable lump just under my back. Awkwardly looking down I saw my suit jacket had bunched up into a lump. Yes, I was wearing a suit. I had had a dress dinner after work, and personally, I take any excuse to wear a suit. I shimmied my body back and forth, trying to straighten a suit without limbs is remarkably difficult. After a good couple minutes of thrusting my hips around, I gave up and slumped off to the side so that I wasn’t laying on the clump. Another couple minutes later and I was most definitely bored. I gave a token resistance to my restraints and was surprised to hear a high-pitched squeal come from them. I quickly stopped after the doctor in the corner turned its head to look at me. Unsurprisingly it was another of those cricket people. After a couple of seconds of sheepish smiling, he huffed and turned back to his fiddling.

 

Glancing around the room I saw many things I didn’t understand. For one, everything was designed for aliens, so my understanding of design was basically invalid, as things are designed to be compatible with the human psyche, and I had no clue how that would translate to an alien mindset. There was what seemed a terminal directly across the room from me, with what seemed to be a very rudimentary hologram above it, just a sequence of floating points making the same ant-demon face I could see plastered all over everything else. The terminal itself consisted of a smooth black panel at about a 30-degree angle with two circles of buttons at either side. While it didn’t look very user-friendly to me, I’m sure the cricket-people had no trouble using it. Scattered around the room were what seemed to be various medical devices, of the research variety. There were a couple of what seemed to be centrifuges and a couple other freezers like containers. While there were a couple unrecognizable things, I’m pretty sure I can deduce, using my amazing powers of deduction, that this is, in fact, a medical room. Probably more designed for research than actual treatment if the lack of any other beds was any indication.

 

A slight swishing sound caught my attention, as the doors to my left opened up and another cricket person walked in. I presumed it was the lady from before, considering it was holding food, but to be honest I had no way to be sure. She was carrying what looked to be a pile of pulled pork, although on closer inspection it was too pink to be cooked pork and mixed intermittently throughout were what looked to be branches.

 

“Good enough for you? Need me to chew it for you first?” The same voice as before spoke from my head. To be honest, I couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic. Sarcasm might not even be a thing here. I allowed myself a brief second of silence for the potential loss of sarcasm before I responded.

 

“I think I’ll be fine thank you. Any chance you have any water?” I started to reach up to grab the tray, before being promptly reminded that I was still in fact, tied down, when my right arm stopped abruptly, a mighty inch away from the rail. “Oh yeah, any chance you could do anything about this?” To emphasise my point, I flailed my wrists around, the links jangling against the rails.

 

“I think that could be arranged. Hold still” Putting the tray on an undoubtedly expensive piece of medical equipment turned table, she reached across my body, her long arm allowing her to stay perfectly in place as she unlocked my right shackle. With a surprisingly soft ting, the circular ring of alloy hit the tiled floor, bouncing a bit before setting down. When she undid my left arm, she gave a small tug on my arm, pulling it towards my feet. A bit confused, I sat up. As I did so she pulled arm down to my knee, before fixing it to the rail there.

 

“Oi, what am I meant to do with one hand?” I was thankful of course, as I said this I tugged my jacket down and a fresh wave of cool air washed over the spot where it had gotten bunched up. One hand free was better than two, and at least I didn’t have to cut anything.

 

“To eat. You do know how to do that right?” If she could have raised an eyebrow, I feel like she would have done that. Maybe she was doing the alien analog. Alien expressions are very confusing.

 

“Yes, of course, I know how to eat, but it’s not like you’ve given me anything to eat with. Do you people even have cutlery?” God that would suck. Note to self, make a fork.

 

“Of course, we have cutlery, but do you really think we’re going to give you a sharp object? You’ve just found out you’re a slave. Who knows what you would do.” She raised a good point. Though my feet were still tied down, so at least that would be funny to watch on a security camera.

 

“True. True. But what am I going to do, faceplant awkwardly into the side of the bed? Give me some credit, I’m at least Sharp enough to figure that one out.”

 

“I was more thinking along the lines of stabbing yourself. Wouldn’t be the first time. Now stop complaining, I’ve already given you enough lee-way by untying one of your hands. Now eat” Aww. She didn’t even recognise my pun. Although I hadn’t even thought of stabbing myself, goes to show where my priorities are.

 

“Well, it would help if I actually had the tray where I could reach it. I don’t have sticks for arms, unlike you.” It was true, I was a man of the gym, and she made supermodels look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, her arms were that skinny, although they definitely made up for it in length, they were probably five foot each.

 

She made a sound that sounded suspiciously like a snort, handed me the food tray and turned to leave, but not before saying: “Drinks are behind you, just press the right button. I’ll come back in a while to brief you on your situation and get you into your groups.

 

“Whatever you say woman. I’ll be right here. Waiting.” A quick glance behind me had a small tube attached to the wall behind me revealed, with a small display just above the attachment point.

 

She continued her spin, carrying herself around to look straight at me, the motion looking rather awkward on her skeleton-like frame. “How did you know I was a woman? I never told you!”

 

“Well, I didn’t really, not until you confirmed it. Call it an educated guess?” Not really, the voice kind of gave it away.

“Really?” She seemed skeptical. “Somehow I doubt that. How did you actually know?”

 

“Well for one, the voice kind of gave it away. That and you act much like a female of my species. Still not entirely sure that’s a good thing yet though.” God if aliens had mood cycles like girls, I’m not sure I would survive being a slave. Suddenly I had a new appreciation for slaves back on earth.

 

“The voice? [Fuck]. Looks like [Mark] cocked it and gave you the expensive translator. [Fucking] dammit.” She kicked one of the medical terminals surrounding my bed. Or at least I think that’s what she did. It reminded me more of those videos where a toddler kicks a soccer ball and promptly trips over when the ball doesn’t move an inch.

 

“You okay there? Need some help? As an engineer, I am fully qualified to perform percussive maintenance if you need it. Just let me out of these shackles and boom. Fixed.”

 

“Nice try. Now if you’ll excuse me I’ve got a beating to deliver.” And with that, she spun and walked out of the room, the lab-coat esque trailing out behind her in the static air.

 

“I’ll see you in a bit!” I shouted after her, before turning down to my meal. “Now do I just scoop this with my hands?”

 

I cautiously scooped the food into my mouth, awkwardly tilting my head as pieces fell from my mouth. It actually wasn’t too bad, the pink meat tasted like an off-brand steak sausage and the branches reminded me of lettuce stems. Altogether not too shabby. A couple of times I jerked my wrist as I tried to grab falling pieces with my left hand, only for the shackle to groan worryingly as it dug into my wrist. I finished the meal up, and scraped the tray for any scraps, before shoving the tray onto the ground. The meal was quite large, yet not very filling, almost like a salad. The doctor in the corner shot me a glare as the tray hit the ground. Oh well, not my problem.

 

Somewhat awkwardly I twisted around to my lift and faced the drinks screen behind me. After fumbling around for a bit, I found a small latch on the top of the screen that tilted it to parallel with the bed. Laying down I grabbed the tube, that didn’t look dissimilar to what you find on a camel pack and cautiously touched the square that had what looked like a mickey mouse head and some water. I presumed the head was the water molecule. God knows what those others were. Could have been poison for all I know.

 

Laying down again, somewhat awkwardly considering my arm was still shackled down low, I slowly sucked on the tube, and cool water rushed into my mouth. Sighing I closed my eyes and did my best to go back to sleep. I must have been far more tired than I thought, because it only took a couple of minutes for me to slip into a deep slumber, regardless of the awkward posture I was in, and into a fitful rest filled with strange creatures and blue boxes.


	3. A Canberran Ozzie in an Alien Spacestation

I mustn’t have been asleep for long before the woman came back in. I really needed to find out her name I decided, as I groggily turned my head to face her. Without a word, she bent over and released first my feet, then my left hand.

 

“Get up.” She said, the translated tone brokered no argument from me. I twisted my legs over the rail, but immediately stopped when my spine erupted in pain. Turns out sleeping half hunched over isn’t the best thing for you. While normally I would solve this by hanging from something and jerking my spine out straight, there were no such places to do so, so I slowly stood up, uncomfortably aware of the woman’s glare. Reaching my full height, I was still over a foot shorter than the alien. This I did not like, I decided. After stretching my back, I stood as straight as I could, while standing slightly on the balls of my feet. Petty, I know but I held my height in great pride and did not like it if people were taller than me. I could deal with it, but something about her being an alien compounded it.

 

“Come, follow me. I’ll take you to your room.” With an unimpressed tone, as if she knew what I was doing, she slapped something onto my lapel and walked somewhat slowly towards the door.

 

“Uhh, what’s this thing?” I pointed to the small box like thing now magically stuck to my front.

 

“Tracker. It’ll electrocute you if you go where you’re not supposed to, try to remove it or if you displease a superior.” Great. Basically, a slave collar.

 

“And if I want to get changed?” God that could be an issue.

 

“Into what? Maybe later I’ll bother getting you a change of clothes, but for now what your wearing looks fine.” Work? As in physically work in my suit? I may be resistant to heat, but not that much, jeez.

 

“What if I get too hot, can’t I take off the jacket?” If I couldn’t, that would suck. I may be on an alien spaceship, but I want to keep my suit as clean and wrinkle free as possible.

 

“Can’t you regulate your body temperature through your mouth?” She seemed almost confused. After a second of mental debate, I eventually reached the consensus that a clean suit and not losing half my body mass in water a day was worth a little human biological information.

 

“Humans, my species if you couldn’t tell, regulate body temperature by releasing water. Obviously wearing something that both keeps the heat in and absorbs the water meant to cool you isn’t the best way to stay cool.” Hopefully this doesn’t backfire on me. I really don’t know if I would like to be dissected for a new trendy style of summer wear.

 

“Really? Fascinating.” Her voice seemed contemplative. “Well, we can deal with that when it becomes relevant. Now for the second time, follow me.” I was starting to get the feeling she didn’t like me. Tentatively I took after her, following her through a series of grid-like hallways, each far larger than any would be on earth. We must be on a space station, or else there is no way that this much wasted space could be economical, I decided as I marveled at the sheer alien nature of the place.

 

“Wait, didn’t you say we were on a research vessel?” I said, somewhat confused.

 

“We walked through the airlock a while back, didn’t you notice?” The voice was incredulous.

 

“No, strange. Must be well hidden.” Strange.

 

After a while, I started to see some other ‘people’. There were strange ape-like aliens that stood at least nine feet off the ground, that on a quick examination, closely resembled the yeti-like creature that knocked me out in the first place. Could be another species, could just be a different gender, yet again the sheer alien nature of this place astounded me. There were more ‘cricket people’, although there were less of them and they tended to be nicer dressed, typically in scientific looking coats or sharp form-fitting uniforms, as compared to the rough, utilitarian vests the apes wore. What started out as a trickle of aliens soon turned into crowded hallways, and I had to stay close to what I guess is now my handler, so as not to get lost in the crowd of massive creatures. I had a few stray glances pointed my way, but even those few soon ignored me when they saw the box on my lapel.

 

After what was only three to four minutes of walking, we arrived at a large open area, almost like a hub. Surprisingly it was a bit less packed than the hallways, with only about twenty or thirty people in the whole area. It had to be at least fifty meters across. It was this lower density that allowed me to properly pay attention to my surroundings. While the room was initially dome-like, the curved walls only carried up about five meters, before terminating into a flat roof. Oh well, I guess no massive ceilings for me. Even more disappointing was the lack of a display on the roof. While I realise that windows are impractical in space, they could have streamed a starscape or something. There were what looked like stalls set up at random locations around the room, although they received very little attention. Everyone seemed to be crowding to a small stage in the centre, where what looked like a slave auction was taking place. I watched for a moment, disgust rising in me, then pity, and then finally sadness as I realised that I could be in that position soon enough. I was brought out of my reverie by the bug lady slapping me across the face. The fact that it wasn’t all that hard was overshadowed by the fact that she towered over me like a parent over a child, which I most definitely did not appreciate.

 

“Do I have to repeat myself for the third time? Next time I’ll just electrocute you.” The woman-I was still to find out her name- lead me to probably the second largest door of the dozen or so scattered around the perimeter. Swiping her hand across a plate I hadn’t even realised was there I noticed that her hands only had three digits and a thumb, all of equal length. What was even weirder was what I saw when the doors opened. A larger hallway than we had been walking through for the past few minutes, at least six meters across, continued for a couple dozen meters, doorways on the side at regular intervals. Walking up and down the hallway were groups of five, with the odd exception. Each group consisted of four poorly dressed beings, all with the same lapel-box as I did, followed by a much better-dressed cricket person, wearing the same sort of coat that my companion wore. Strangely though, if you looked close you could see a slight lump under the cricket’s coat as if they too had a similar box. Speeding up my slow walk a bit, I overtook the escort and looked at her. Sure enough, there was a box, sitting inconspicuously under her coat.

 

I quickly resumed my position behind her when I saw her raise a tablet threateningly, undoubtedly the control for my box on there. As if hearing my question, she spoke.

 

“Yes, we are slaves too. The Wantle corporation uses groups of slaves and distributes them that way. It allows them to work better together. It just so happens that the leader of the group is also a slave. They say it helps build trust and teamwork, but they really do it because it’s cheaper. Seriously, what are they going to do, escape? A group tries to escape roughly every [1.26 years] but they just get shot down. Last year they got further than normal, but still barely made it past the first airlock.” I got the feeling this was a sore spot for her. Well, too bad, I didn’t have a choice in becoming a slave either, so suck it up.

 

“Ok well that’s nice and all, but don’t you think you should be taking me somewhere. In her rant, she had stopped moving. I wasn’t particularly keen to go wherever we were going but it was better than listening to a rant.

 

“Fine. You better keep up though.” And with that, she set off at a brisk walk. At least her version of one anyway, it wasn’t all that hard to keep up. As I walked I pondered what had been bothering me this whole time, apart from the whole slave, alien, and space thing. It had all started when the restraints hit the floor in the medical room. God, what was it? Wrapped up in my own world, I almost didn’t notice the woman stopping in front of me and unlocking a side door. Turning to follow her, I entered a large spacious bunk room. For me at least. For the large ape sitting in the corner, it looked abysmally cramped.

 

The cricket lady turned to face me and was about to start to talk, but I quickly cut her off.

 

“Hey, before you say anything, what’s your name? It’s really been bugging me this whole time, and I really need to know.”

 

“Oh really, has it now?” If she had eyebrows she would be raising them. “It’s [UNTRANSLATABLE NAME- NEW DESIGNATION: BEATRICE].”

 

If I had water in my mouth I would have spat it out. This was way too funny for the circumstances.

 

“So, this translator thing, it just randomly assigns names, yes?”

 

“Yes, was the name it gave me particularly humorous?”

 

“You could say that yeah. How can you change it? ‘Cos I really don’t want to call you Beatrice, but weird-bug-lady isn’t much better.” I was trying my best to stifle my laughter, for such a serious situation I sure was taking it well.

 

“Just say (COMMAND: CHANGE DESIGNATION [BEATRICE] TO []). Now then, can we go?”

 

“Hold on.” It was weird when she said the command, it sounded like a robot, just like when it assigned the name. Must just be the system voice or something. Regardless, the nagging feeling hadn’t gone away, so it wasn’t the name I was missing, it was something else. Oh well, I’ll kick myself when I find out later, but for now, there’s not much I can do. “(COMMAND: CHANGE DESIGNATION [BEATRICE] TO [UHH, JANE DOE])”

 

“(SUCCESSFULLY CHANGED [BEATRICE] TO [UHH, JANE DOE])”

 

“Wait, shit no. Lemme try again” I once again cut off ‘Uhh, Jane Doe’ as I moved to try again. At this point, the yeti in the corner was looking at me with an almost retarded, glassy gaze. Sort of reminded me of Chewbacca, but with a weird head ridge. That seemed to be the word of the day; weird.

 

“(COMMAND: CHANGE DESIGNATION [UHH, JANE DOE] TO [JANE DOE])” I had to stop myself from laughing during the command, so as to prevent a third take.

 

“(SUCCESSFULLY CHANGED [UHH, JANE DOE] TO [JANE DOE])”

 

Even so, you could still hear that I was on the verge of laughter when saying the names. Hopefully, it doesn’t affect anything too bad, right now I’m too lazy to try again.

 

Sounding definitively annoyed, the wo-Jane tried again. “This is your bunk. You will be staying here. If you hadn’t picked it up already, these are your group mates. These are the people you’re going to be working with. And me. Yay.” Yes, she was definitely annoyed.

 

“I don’t suppose I get a choice?” I responded hopefully.

 

“Bunks there, talk to your roommates if you want food. Now bye.” With that, Jane turned into an obscure side room and left me to my own devices. Yay.

 

I turned to face the occupants of the room. There was the yeti in the corner, sitting on the bottom right bunk, a bird-like thing staring at me from the top bunk on the rooms right, and a vague lump under the covers on the top left bunk.

 

“Right well, hello there. I’m your new roommate, so I guess we can all wallow in our sadness together?” No one responded, tough crowd. “Or I guess we could start with introductions. You first.”


	4. A Canberran Ozzie in an Alien Bunkroom

I pointed to the yeti in the corner. It just stared at me blankly. I waited a few awkward seconds, before pointing at the bird-like thing on the top right bunk.

“Alright, how about you?” It too just stared blankly at me. “Can you actually understand me?” 

I walked forward a bit, towards the Yeti. 

“Uhh, hello?” I started to wave my hand in front of the yeti thing’s face, as the bunks were far too tall for me to reach the bird thing.

The alien just stared unerringly at my face, with the same glassy look it had had before. Thoroughly confused, I walked right up to it. Even sitting, the alien was taller than me. Probably due to its weirdly short legs, not unlike an ape. I turned my back on the other bed, facing both aliens with a curious look on my face. 

“Hello?” I said nervously, somewhat creeped out by the way the aliens pivoted to constantly face me, almost like animatronics.

Suddenly, I spun around, hearing a rustling in the covers behind me.

Now, let it be said that I am very proud of what I did next. Frankly, the fact that I didn’t void my bowels there and then is still a mystery, as is the fact that I didn’t scream. What I did do, however, was swear. Very very loudly.

“HOLY FUCKING SHIT!” I shouted as I threw myself backwards, as the Xenomorph under the covers leapt out at me.

I painfully knocked my head into the bunks behind me, falling to the ground and scrambling away as fast as I could

At that moment, I finally understood how characters in horror films feel. I would usually scream at them to stop crawling and just run, but when there is a fucking Xenomorph after you, rational thought doesn’t exactly work properly.

“FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!” I shouted as the Xenomorph jumped on me. I was not prepared for this after the day I had had, emotionally or physically.   
Something in the back of my mind quietly told me that this wasn’t, in fact, a Xenomorph. It was a bit too small, had four arms and was just generally different, but that part was quickly overwhelmed by the desperate need to get away from the black thing on my chest.

The ‘xenomorph’ hissed loudly, a long, forked tongue sticking out, like a snake’s. 

I panicked and wildly swung my arms at it. One of the flails got lucky, knocking the alien off me.

The ‘xenomorph’ stayed where it had landed, still alive but not making any move against me. After a couple seconds I slowly stood up, the adrenaline fading away. I pulled my suit jacket down, straightening out any wrinkles that may have appeared, attempting to recover my dignity. 

As I did so, a strange sound filled my head. I looked around the room, curious as to the sound. All three alien occupants in the room, including the Xenomorph on the ground, were rolling around in what seemed to be laughter. I looked around, very confused and somewhat scared. After a few moments, the yeti seemed to realise that I was looking and spoke for the first time. 

“Good [lord] that was funny. You’ll have to forgive us, we pull this whole thing every time we get a new ‘member’. It seems that every sapient we’ve ever encountered is scared wonderfully by young [UNTRANSLATABLE NAME- NEW DESIGNATION: JOHN] here.”

As he did so, his previous mentally deficient demeanour disappeared, in favour of a much more upright pose and a sharp look in his eyes. Never before had I understood how someone can have a ‘sharp look in their eyes’ but I guess I do now.

At that point, I was well and truly off my guard. Not only had I just been ambushed by an apparently friendly Xenomorph called John, but the thing talking to me now was a space ape yeti, that spoke with probably the most refined British accent I’d ever heard outside of television.

“Oh, well okay then.” I shakenly responded. I did my best to compose myself and looked around at the room's occupants. “So you’ve just got a pet Xenomorph lying around to prank new slaves with?”

“Oh goodness no, John isn’t a pet. He’s a fully functioning sapient like you or me. Wantle found him at a slave market and had to purchase him. He’s one of the few creatures successfully abducted from a Deathworld you know!” 

The space yeti was just as British as the last time I heard him speak.

“I’m not even going to comment on the stupidity of abducting Xenomorphs.” The nervous tremble was still audible to me. An abysmally stupid idea, I’m sure everyone knows. But what’s somehow got me more worried than the Xenomorph, is the fact that they’ve said they’ve done it to everyone who’s joined their group. Which means that it’s happened a couple of times, with them staying consistent. Suspicious. 

“What I will say is that why do you guys stay the same, but other people swap out so much? Is the job that hazardous?”

The yeti ‘laughed’ again, and responded, “You’d think so wouldn’t you. Sometimes they leave because of accidents, but this is a group for purely physical labour. It’s more of a punishment group, we just happen to be on permanently. If a slave annoys their handler then they get punished, sometimes by being transferred here. When they’ve served their time, they leave.” That actually made much more sense.

“So what did you do to annoy your superiors so much?” I slowly asked the Yeti.

“Nothing. None of us did. Except for [UNTRANSLATABLE NAME- NEW DESIGNATION: KRYSTAL], but that’s a story we can tell later. We aren’t the only purely physical labour group, other get disobedient slaves as well.” 

Good lord, what are these names? Krystal? With a K? I’d struggle to think of a more pretentious name if I tried! I needed to ask Jane if there is a way to stop it from translating names, weird alien names would be better than these. That way I wouldn’t be laughing every time I called an alien cricket lady ‘Jane.’ 

“Ahh. I see,” I replied. 

At that point, the Xenomorph in the corner recovered from its laughter and stood up properly. A while ago, I’d seen a full-sized Xenomorph model, and it had stood at least seven foot tall. The alien standing up was probably ‘only’ six foot when measured in its natural stance, but could probably reach eight foot if it reared up. It then took this opportunity to interject, and surprisingly, the translator chose a relatively normal voice.

“Yeah, don’t feel bad, we do it to everyone. There was this [Grrumack] that literally shat itself! Pretty funny if I do say so myself,” it said, sounding vaguely masculine and with a slight German edge.

‘It was quite ironic,’ I thought. ‘Of all the accents the translator could have chosen for the killy-killy-death alien, it chose a German one. I wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that.’

“And what exactly is a Grrumack?” I queried the shiny black alien.

“You know a Grrumack. The-“ He didn’t get to finish his sentence before the yeti in the corner cut him off.

“My species. The Grrumack.” The Grrumack interjected. “He’s a [Ces'ceck], or so he tells us.” He added pointing at the Xenomorph. “Krystal is a [kraktch], and Jane, if you didn’t already know is a [Lumvre].”

“And what exactly is your name, my fine gentleman?” 

To be honest, I was very out of it at that point, and still slightly annoyed at them for the whole ‘Xenomorph prank’ thing - although, in hindsight, I can see how it would be funny for them, so I copied the Grrumack’s accent somewhat mockingly.

“Oh yes, how forgetful of me. I am [UNTRANSLATABLE NAME- NEW DESIGNATION: JEREMY].” Jeremy said. 

God these names were killing me. They weren’t particularly funny on their own, but the sheer absurdity of a nine-foot-tall space ape being called Jeremy of all things was enough to set off internal snickers every time I heard it.

We all turned when the door to the side room swished open, and Jane walked out. She looked significantly wetter than last time, a light dusting of water covering her. Her ‘lab’ coat, usually pristine looked slightly damper than last time. Presumably, she’d just had whatever the alien equivalent of a shower was.

“Right, now that you’re all introduced, we can finally get on with the day,” Jane announced. 

“You!” She pointed at me. “Follow me, we’re going on a tour - the rest of you, enjoy your break while it lasts.” And with that, she walked past all of us and straight out the door.

“Nice meeting you guys!” I called out to the group in the room, raising a hand in a thumbs up, before turning and grimacing slightly. 

I followed Jane out the door. Maybe they would turn out to be okay with time, but for now I was still a bit overwhelmed with everything.

“So, where are we going?” I asked Jane as I walked after her. 

As I walked, I slowly started to get my wits together and began to walk and talk more confidently.

“As I said before, for a tour. I’m starting to think that you don’t actually listen to me,” she said, without turning to face me.

“Maybe. Maybe not. You know, for so-called ‘slaves’ you seem to have it pretty easy.” 

She turned her head and looked at me. 

“Not that I’m complaining, mind you, it’s just strange.”

“It’s because we have you. Whenever a new member is introduced, the group is allowed a three day leave from work so the new member can become acquainted.”   
This made slightly more sense but still didn’t explain why they were so adamant on teamwork. So I asked.

“And why exactly is Wantle so focused on teamwork?” I queried.

“Because a team that know each other works better and more efficiently. It also makes controlling them easier, as they don’t like to see friends get hurt, so they stay out of trouble, if not for themselves, then for their team,” she explained. 

That made a lot more sense. Still, it seemed to me that it would be a lot easier to just beat anyone who disobeys, but why exactly would I complain?

“Huh. I see. So where are we going?”

“On a tour. For the third time. Ask again and you’ll regret it!” Jane threatened. 

I wonder why exactly she acts like this. I get that I’m not exactly the most likeable of people, but she seems to go from fine to annoyed and threatening on some invisible trigger. I would ask, but I don’t exactly want to get tazed. Perhaps it’s some company policy, if a subordinate asks the same question too many times, she is required to threaten them? Who knew. Maybe I could ask Jeremy when I got back, he seemed pretty knowledgeable.

“No, like where exactly are we going first? As in the individual stops and locations,” I said, rephrasing the question - the added detail at the end seemed necessary to prevent an outburst.

“Does it matter?” Not really.

“Yes. A, I want to know; B, I’m making conversation; and C, I can remember it ahead of time so I can memorise the layout better.” All bullshit of course, but I really didn’t care. Sometimes showing an interest isn’t such a bad idea.

“Fine. First we're going to the medical ward, then the mess hall, then the work areas. We have stops between and after, but those are the major ones.” 

“Cool. But haven’t I already been to the medical ward? Wasn’t that where I started this whole ‘adventure’?” 

“No, you were on board the Intrepid - a research vessel. We are going to the proper medical area on the station,” Jane explained. 

Of course, now that I think back, it was way too small and research-y to be a medical station for a whole station. Oh well, they say hindsight is 20/20.

“True. Now I feel like an idiot.”

“Don’t worry, you are.” 

‘Well thanks,’ I thought. 

The more I was on the station, the closer I realised it was to home. Nothing like a good insult to bring you back to ear- erm, space?

“Hey, something has been bothering me for a while. Is there anything major that’s changed since I’ve gotten here?” I queried of Jane. “It’s just been annoying me for a while and I can’t figure it out.” 

“Do I look like your therapist?”

I shrugged. I filed away the information that mental disorders weren’t a purely human thing. 

“Fine. Oxygen content? Air pressure? Gravity? Literally any of the countless things?” contributed Jane.

“Lemme see.” I ran through a mental list. Did I feel slightly more energetic? No, actually slightly lethargic, so the oxygen content in the air may be lower - or I’m just tired. Is my hearing weird? No, so air pressure is similar, or I’ve already adjusted, so it mustn’t be that big of a deal. Gravity? I did a small hop. I shot probably two to three times as high into the air as I expected. 

‘Definitely gravity,’ I mentally decided. I was mentally kicking myself. How had I not realised? I would have thought I would have noticed it immediately. Not exactly the kind of thing you easily miss. Oh well.

“Yeah it’s definitely gravity,” I said to no one in particular, flinging my arm into the air and watching as it slowly fell to my side. “Dunno how I didn’t notice it earlier.” 

“Great job. I’m applauding you in my head. Silently.” The more she spoke, the more she reminded me of someone. No idea who though.

“Thank you kindly.” I did a mock small bow as she turned her head away again. 

“I wondered why I was starting to feel a bit light-headed!” I punned. 

Though to be honest, I was probably just tired. I told myself I’d get a proper sleep soon, I just had to wait until the alien equivalent of night. 

“Well, lead the way.” I gestured forward.

“I already was.” Jane responded blandly.

“Whatever. Just go.” I said, somewhat bitterly.

“Sure, whatever.”


	5. A Canberran Ozzie in an Alien Tour

After a couple of minutes, we reached the medical bay. As we entered I was astounded by its sheer size. The station had obviously been built with larger beings in mind than me, so it was of little surprise that the medical ward was any different. 

We walked in through the main entrance, and unlike any other door I had seen, the door did not require a pass or id. Likely so that anyone could be rushed in without hassle.

The room was much larger than the previous medical bay I had been in, and extended for at least fifteen meters in each direction, although there was little room to navigate throughout, as a large part of it was taken up by large couches and the occasional desk. I did find it quite strange that they had this much room on a space station, obviously they had to have some way of making it cheaper, otherwise, it wouldn’t have been nearly as roomy as it was.

“Obviously this is the medical ward,” Jane spoke. “Just there is the reception, and further to the right is the doctors’ offices.” She pointed to a ‘small’ desk just to the entrances right, It resembled a long rectangle sticking out of the Ward’s wall. Sitting behind it was another Lumvre, although this one didn’t have the customary coat, nor did it have a lump by its lapel. So they did employ people.

We walked past the receptionist’s desk. “Over there are the General wards, and there are the Emergency wards. As you can see, one is significantly more important.” She first gestured to an open door directly in front of the ward’s entrance. Glancing through the door, I saw rows of beds similar to what I had woken up on, alongside various Lumvre wandering the isles. From what I could see, the room seemed moderately filled, about one-third of the beds were taken. Either there was a lot of alien on this ship, or the work was quite hazardous. I guessed that I’d find out when I started work myself.

The second room she pointed to was a slightly more obscure door, on the rooms left. Above the door in small block like letters was something, presumably ‘Emergency Wards’ in whatever alien script the Lumvre used. When I watched the door, a Lumvre walked out of it at a brisk pace, clutched in its hands was presumably a clipboard.

“Okay, and what else are we doing here?” Was there somewhere else we were going? It seemed strange that the mess hall would be located through the medical wards.

“I’ve got to drop off the papers from your physical. You do remember I said that we performed a brief scan? Well, this is just to make sure that there isn’t anything toxic to you that we may put you to work on.”

“Huh. And what else did you scan? As in how many details?” I wanted to know if they’d scanned my whole body or if it was just a brief cursory scan. Not that it mattered or anything, or that there was anything I could do about it, but it would be nice to know just how much they knew.

“You’re a curious one aren’t you? It was just a quick scan, there was no point in doing anything else.” Ok, so it wasn’t much.

“How long will it take to drop off the papers?” I queried, I was looking forward to food. Although she did tell me that to get food I had to ask my ‘bunkmates’ so why was she then taking me there myself?

We got to the end of the main room and turned into the doctors’ offices. 

“Not long. Now stop talking.” 

We walked down yet another oversized hallway, although this one was significantly less packed. In fact, there was only about one other alien in the hallway. When we walked the dozen or so meter to the end of the hallway, we turned to the left into a small office. Sitting there was a ‘short’ Lumvre. I stood at the entrance, waiting.

Without a word, Jane walked up and neatly pulled out a couple of sheets of paper form her coat, held together with an orange blob of what looked like bluetack or putty in the top right corner. She placed them into a small rectangle about a twenty centimeters across and forty down. The Lumvre sitting at the desk glanced up from his paperwork, before ignoring us and continued on.

Jane walked out of the room, and I followed her. On the way through the main entrance of the ward, I managed to snag what looked to be an anatomical guide to three of the aliens I had seen so far. 

With skill perfected from years of reading and walking, I navigated the crowds after Jane, without once glancing up from the booklet.

I couldn’t read a single word on the page of course. It was all in the same script I had seen above the emergency ward door. I glanced up briefly from the booklet to look around me. While Jane blocked my view in front of me, the crowds around me were relatively thin, so I was able to catch a couple of glances at the walls. For the first time, I realised that the same script was all over everything, marking outdoors and the occasional weirdly coloured poster. I had probably noticed it before, but just brushed it off as decoration, I decided, as it was remarkably faint on the walls.

Looking back down at the booklet I studied the pictures like a three-year-old and a picture book. Which summed up my situation pretty nicely, the more I thought about it. The page was divided into three horizontally split sections, each about twenty centimeters tall. Joining each section was a fold, so the whole thing folded up vertically, similar to how booklets did on earth. There were a couple of pictures, but there were three main ones, taking up a good third of their respective section each.

Unsurprisingly the first section was on the Lumvre. They seemed to have a large dominance over every other species here. I briefly wondered if it was the same everywhere else before I shook my head and turned back to the image. It showed a Lumvre standing up straight from both the front and the back. I was momentarily surprised when there were what looked to be two vestigial arms below the usual ones but got over it relatively quickly. From the front, they looked similar to an ant. They had the human shaped head, although with mandibles and horns as well as a keratinous exterior. As a matter of fact, the entire body was covered in the same sort of keratin as the face, resembling crickets in colour. Underneath the head was a skinny neck and similarly skinny shoulders, scarcely five or so centimeters wider than the head on each side. The arms hung straight down, and the vestigial arms filled the gap between the outside arms and the torso. The torso itself seemed to resemble an ant’s more than a cricket's body, as it looked like an upside-down truncated triangle with rounded edges. The narrower bottom of the torso was connected via a rectangle about half as wide as the torso to the lower body, where the legs started. The legs themselves were also remarkably skinny, but that seemed to be a given with the Lumvre, as well as being digitigrade. There was a small abdomen connecting the waist and the legs, that barely reached the same width as the torso. From the back, it was a lot more terrifying though. The back of the torso, unlike the front that was mostly flat, resembling almost plate armour, the back curved sickeningly, being far thicker at the top than the bottom. A Thicker plate was visible all the way down the back in a strange hybrid of endoskeletal and exoskeletal structures. Surrounding the back of the torso was a series of lumps, almost turning the whole thing into a turtle shell. There were also a series of raised sections and recessed sections over it, giving the whole thing a very Giger-esque look. The rest of the back was pretty much the same, just smooth plates covering the back of everything.

I shuddered and put the booklet away for later, the back was just too gross to look at. It was just in time as well, as we had just arrived at the mess hall, or so I presumed. My previous mood mostly forgotten as the thought of food cheered me up. I started to walk faster towards the door, but that lasted all of five seconds before Jane barred my path with one of her arms and looked at me appraisingly.

 

“There is food in there and I want it.” I stated, matter-of-factly as I constantly eyed the entrance.

“Well, you can wait. We aren’t getting any food anyway. As I said, this is just a tour. The only reason we went into the medical ward was so I could drop the papers off.” That was only a mere setback, I was hungry and needed food badly.

“Care to reconsider? I’m famished right now and would be functioning below my peak operational functionality were I to be denied food.” Maybe logic would work. It doesn't usually but Jane seems to need to follow specific parameters, so hopefully, by threatening that I would work less, She would be forced to give me food. And I wanted food quite badly.

Jane stared at me - suddenly I realised that I had never seen her blink- and I stared back, uncomfortably trying not to blink. After a couple of seconds of not blinking Jane broke the silence by speaking.

“Fine. Well, grab something on the way. Don’t think you can do that every time though.” Jane walked to the door to the mess hall and scanned her id thing once again on a plate that I could barely see. I was starting to think, with all the weird colours on this station, that the aliens, or possibly just the Lumvre, saw in a different spectrum to humans. It would certainly explain why key thing such as writing and the panels were so hard to make out. Regardless, I was happy with my momentary victory and I was cheered up nonetheless.

“Joy. Whaddya have? Actually for that matter, how much of the stuff can I eat?” I didn’t want to get space diarrhoea from alien food, no matter how tasty it may be.

“As an omnivore, you should be good for most of the general section. Just avoid any species-specific areas. That can get nasty when someone has it for a dare or something.” Sounds easy enough. Unfortunately, I can’t read the native language so this will be harder than it sounds.

“Sounds good. Got any alcohol? Also, what do you recommend? I have no clue what any of this stuff is.” I said when I observed the large, stretching canteen that went from one side of the room to the other, about twenty meters in total. The room was laid out how you would expect, with benches placed in a grid arrangement. The counter had food in shelves three layers high, with all sorts of food there, some recognisable, if barely, and others completely alien.

“Alcohol? You’re one of those species? No, that’s in the species-specific section, and that’s if we have it stocked at all. The species that drink that,” She seemed somewhat disgusted. “Are few and far between on this station. Additionally, I don’t think that my tastes are going to match your’s.” She raised a good point, I didn’t really feel much for grubs and leaves, or whatever the Lumvre ate.

“Do I need a pass or?” I left the question hanging.

“No, if you get in here, you’re meant to be in here. Grab what you need quickly, we should be halfway to the work areas by now.” Yet again, another good point.

“Okay, don’t mind if I do.” With that, I was off. When in doubt, eat. Stress eating was very relaxing and a great way to pass the time. The few other aliens in the room spared nary but a glance at me when I walked straight up to the meatiest, most hamburger-y thing there, and grabbed three. I didn’t even have a tray, I just grabbed them, then I got the tray. 

Walking up the canteen a bit more, I saw what looked to be a sausage, although when I tentatively tasted it, it tasted disgusting, so I threw it in one of the many bins under the counter when I walked past. There was also what seemed to be lettuce some ways up the path, so I grabbed that as well. If it wasn’t already obvious I wasn’t making a meal, I was just grabbing the most familiar food off of shelves almost at random.

After I grabbed a couple more food items -for such large aliens, they sure had small portions- I walked back to where Jane was standing. Stuffing the lettuce into my mouth as I walked, I motioned to the door with my right hand, my left occupied with holding the tray.

Jane silently walked to the door and swiped her card again, opening the door. I followed closely behind, noisily stuffing foodstuffs into my face. Some of it was quite good, others not so much. Some were ridiculously spicy. 

On eating one such spicy thing, Jane turned and looked at me with what I presumed was an amused face, although she still looked angry to me. I, however, was open-mouthed and breathing quickly. The meatball like thing was quite good, although, in my defence, it was only slightly spicy when I ate it.

After a couple of minutes, the spice died down and Jane turned away, only to look back at me in alarm when I exclaimed,

“Whoo! Goddamn, that's a spicy meatball. Imma leave those for a bit.” I pushed the two meatballs I had left off to the side of the tray, it’s surprisingly high edges easily keeping them in.

“Are you okay there?” Jane asked tentatively.

“Nah mate, I’m fine, just haven’t had something that spicy for a while. Good though.” Kinda tasted like smoked ham when I thought of it.

“Okay. Sure. Let me know if you feel ill or something later.” Jane muttered, sounding confused.

A couple of minutes of walking in silence later, I steeled my nerves and pulled out the Booklet again. Time to look at the Grrumack’s picture. This should be fun.


	6. A Canberran Ozzie in an Alien Dock

It was surprisingly earthlike for an alien. The body resembled a gorilla’s, if it was stretched to around eight feet tall, and narrowed considerably. Just like a gorilla, the Grrumack’s legs were remarkably short in comparison to its body, being only a third of its height, or about three feet. Its torso was just a solid rectangle, with no remarkable features. Its arms fell parallel to its body, just like a human, though they reached to its knees. The head was the most remarkable part though. From the front it almost looked like a diplodocus, with a wide, round lower part and rectangular jaws sticking out. The top half was much narrower than the bottom half, and had a very small gradient, so it looked almost like a rectangle sticking out of the top of a hemisphere. The top of the head ridge was smooth and hairless, looking like a keratinous plate. It wasn’t actually very alien at all, even the back closely resembled a human, although slightly blockier and much hairier and with a painful looking hunchback. 

Unlike before, I had to wait a while before we got to the work areas. The more we walked, the fewer aliens there were, and a greater percentage of them were in the same groups of five as before. Some of the doors on the side of the hallway slowly opened up, until they were as tall as the hallway and as wide as a garage door. Beyond them I could see what looked like cargo bays, stacked high with crates and groups of Grrumack running around, operating the machinery, all under the supervision of the omnipresent Lumvre.

Strangely, most of the doors at the start stayed the same size, although they too were open. Beyond them I saw office rooms, with cubicles large enough to fit the oh-so-common groups of five, although these groups mainly consisted of Lumvre, Kraktch, and some other, unidentifiable beings. All of them seemed to be hard at work doing paperwork of some sorts, though what for I had no idea. That did make sense though, it did make little sense for physical labor slaves to be on a space station, of course, the majority of the slaves would be for menial labor or paperwork. I did wonder how they ensured quality of work though. Maybe had multiple groups doing the same paperwork, and they cross-referenced the papers afterward. Maybe, I have no idea. Everything here was literally too alien for me to fully understand.

Eventually, we got to what I presumed was the main work area, our arrival easy to predict due to the increasing frequency of cargo bays. This station was big, I decided, really big. The main work area was set at the end of the hallway and was essentially a massive dock. 

There were crates of all shapes and sizes stacked on neat shelves, dozens of meters high, while workers operated machinery at the base to move ‘grabbers’ around on the shelves. 

On the ground there were labor groups, carrying small crates by hand and occasionally driving a futuristic forklift. Directly in front of the entrance was a gap between the shelves on either side, going for about a hundred meters. At the end, I could see probably the most awesome thing I had ever seen in my time here. 

A massive rocket rested on stands, being constructed by many a machine and factory worker. The rocket looked nothing like a typical sci-fi rocket and instead looked like a standard rocket you would see on earth, except with a large cube tip. It was actually quite comical, this massive, hundred meter by hundred meter tube with a cylinder sticking out the back, scarcely fifty meters long and ten wide. 

“This is the docks or the main labor work area. As an unskilled laborer, you will work with your group to bring supplies to the engineers and load crates when needed. It’s nice and simple.” I had no doubts in my mind that it would actually be that simple, my experience as an engineer justifying that. But at the moment my brain was more occupied with the rocket, so instead, I asked her about it.

“Ok, that's cool. But that rocket there, how does it get around? I get that it doesn’t need to be aerodynamic in space, but that doesn't look like nearly enough thrust to move it.” Only then did what Jane had said process fully in my mind. “Also, I’m an engineer too, why don't I get to work on the cool rocket?”

“Really? You’re focusing on the rocket here?” I shrugged, rockets were cool. “It doesn't actually need much thrust, it only needs the Δv to exit the station and accelerate to a safe speed and distance, and do the same at the other end. And an engineer you say? In rockets hundreds of years more advanced than yours?” I gave a sheepish grin, which apparently translated well, or she just guessed. “Exactly.”

“Wait, so they just accelerate then what, go into cryo? How do they deliver on time?” It would suck if I was in a space-faring civilization without FTL, makes exploring real difficult.

She looked at me with what I would assume to be a baffled expression. “No, just enough to get to the target speed, then hyperspace takes care of the rest.”

“Ooh! So you do have FTL!” We stopped halfway down the gap between the shelves and turned to face each other. “How does it work?” I was really curious, I had grown up on this sort of thing, to live it was really exciting. “Is there just no speed of light limit? Or what?”

Once again, she looked at me like I was stupid. “If there was no speed limit, then it wouldn’t matter, as there is not enough fuel in the rocket to accelerate it nearly fast enough, as well as we would be limited by the speed of the propellant. No, hyperspace it just a smaller, empty version of our universe, so every [2.13 meters] is the equivalent of [2.58*10^10 meters] in hyperspace.” Wowsers, that's fast!

“Jeeze, that must make medium sized voyagers annoying, stay in there an instant too long and you overshoot your target by a mile!”

“Not necessarily, there are different levels of hyperspace, that’s just the fastest one. Lower levels are used for things like gates, where a lesser compression is needed.” Of course. How could I not know this?

“Gates?” I was curious. Was it like a teleporter? Or was it more like a tube?

“A static hole to the lower levels of hyperspace, with an entrance in one spot, a physical tunnel through hyperspace, and an exit at the other. Typically used for quick lateral motion.” I immediately spotted a loophole with this.

“Wait, so you go in one side and go out the other, compressing the distance? Wouldn’t that create energy out of nothing? Say if you take something at ground level, lift it up five meters in hyperspace, and it comes out fifty meters up in real pace? How does that work?” There was no way these guys had free energy, so there had to be a loophole somewhere.

“Impressive. Most people don’t spot that. Lateral motion is mostly fine, yes, but vertical motion, the effort required to go up is multiplied by the compression ratio. The extra energy is split in a ratio dependant on the compression of hyperspace between the portal generator and the object moving, although this ratio can be changed with some fancy engineering.” That made more sense, the extra energy the object gained was taken from the electrical energy of the generator and the kinetic energy of the object.

“But what about in space? Gravity is still in effect there, if much weaker. With the amount of weight a spaceship must weigh, surely that must take a lot of energy?” I also presumed that if an object came from a high point into a low point, and the ratio of energy distribution was adjusted, then you could essentially generate electricity.

“Yes, it does take a lot of energy. That’s why most ships have a large generator, and little rockets and fuel. Makes travel far more economical.”

“Wait, so how do you land on planets? The amount of energy must be massive?”

“Yes, it is. Mostly static portals are used, and at a reasonably low compression, maybe three to one. Then the good are funneled through the tunnel and into space. Though it really only works economically on planets with below [.825G’s].” If that number was accurate, then Earth’s gravity must have been quite high compared to the galactic standard. Almost too high.

“Sorry, is that number correct? What exactly is the galactic standard gravity, or whatever the standard measure is?” I was confused, I knew that Earth’s gravity was high, at least compared to this station, but I had put it down to it being a station, and just like in The Expanse, the aliens on here were just unusually skinny. Apparently, that may not have been the case.

“Yes, it is. The galactic standard is about [.485G’s] Is that so surprising?” Jane snarkily commented.

“Yeah. It is. Also, what’s with the oddly specific numbers, it's a bit strange?” A chill descended over me, as I realised just how out of place I was.

“The translator translated figures to three significant figures. It can be tweaked with a command if you like?” 

“No thanks, I’m fine. Actually, how are you translating English right now? It’s not like you have a dictionary or anything, and I don’t have a neural implant.” Or maybe I did, ‘Mark’ could have cocked up bigger than Jane thought.

“We did stay on Earth for a while after you were knocked out. We stayed long enough to determine whether we were in an uncharted system, or if we were in another place entirely. When we determined where we were, we just ran a basic binary program that adapts to the system and downloads the local language. Yours is Australian English, is it not?” The more I talked with Jane, the more things made sense. She also seemed to be warming up to me, so that’s a plus I guess.

“Huh. Well was there anything else? Or should we get going, I want something to drink.” I looked down at the tray still in my hands. “Also where should I put this?”

“No, we’re good, just put it on top of a bin or something.”

And so, I excitedly walked towards the rocket, before Jane shouted at me to turn around and head back to the bunkroom. Grudgingly I walked back to the room, spirits dampened by the lost chance to see a spaceship up close.

**Author's Note:**

> Other Disclaimer: Hopefully it gets better, though I have done some brief spellcheck.


End file.
